Another John Lackey gem sparks Red Sox

BOSTON 
There is a perverse little place in every Red Sox fan's heart called the Disappointment Hall of Fame.

J.D. Drew and Carl Crawford's plaques are in a special wing. Not far from there is the main hallway, populated by the likes of Eric Gagne, Mike Torrez, Matt Young and Edgar Renteria.

The workmen had been hammering away, carving out a spot for John Lackey, but that project has been put on hold indefinitely.

Lackey's marvelous, and timely, comeback continued on Tuesday night as he pitched the Red Sox to a 4-1 victory over the Padres.

Boston is 6-1 on what will be a nine-game homestand and is 14-4 in its last 18 games against the National League.

Lackey worked eight innings and gave up six hits and one run. He left to cheers, something that may have happened back in 2010, but has not happened in a matter of years. Lackey was asked about that sendoff.

“It just feels good to pitch,” he responded. “I'm not worried about picking up slack for anybody. I missed a full season, and I'm just having fun pitching.”

His post-Tommy John surgery renaissance has been so dramatic that it's a wonder Lackey didn't go under the knife sooner, especially considering how bad he was in 2011 with a 12-12 record and historically bad ERA of 6.41. However, he has no regrets about not having the operation sooner.

“Not really,” Lackey said. “That year, for most of the year, we had a chance at doing something pretty special, and I wanted to be part of that.”

The win improved his record to 6-5 and lowered his ERA to 2.81. He has joined Clay Buchholz in the American League's top 10 in that category and is on a pace to finish below 3.00 for the first time in his career. In his last four starts, Lackey is 3-0 with a 2.17 ERA. He has walked only three and struck out 27 in 29 innings.

Manager John Farrell was in Toronto when Lackey was stumbling through the 2011 season, so saw him only from a distance. Farrell can be forgiven if he has a hard time recognizing Lackey from close up, and not just because he is pitching so much better.

“I think he'll admit that it's a work in progress,” Farrell said, “but he recognized that some things had to change,” adding, “It was the way he reshaped his body, as much as the Tommy John (surgery). We ask our players to maintain a certain level of fitness and conditioning, but he, too, went beyond that.”

The manager was being diplomatic with “reshaped his body.” He could have just said that Lackey had gotten fat.

With Lackey playing a big part in things, the Red Sox have survived the shutdown of Buchholz pretty well. They were 38-25 before he was disabled and are 13-9 since. Boston's lead in the AL East was 1-1/2 games. It is 3-1/2 games now.

The only Padres run came via Jesus Guzman's homer in seventh, a ball that barely made it to the ledge on top of the Green Monster.

The Red Sox scored three times in the fourth and added an insurance run in the sixth. The rally in the fourth was keyed by another big hit from Triple-A call-up Brandon Snyder. Boston had the bases loaded and one out for Snyder, and he worked the count full before drilling a shot off the wall in left-center. It was about four feet shy of being a grand slam.

Snyder tried for third and was about six inches shy of being the first Boston batter since Kevin Youkilis in 2007 to hit a bases-loaded triple. Snyder was credited with a double.

In all, the Red Sox had nine hits. Four Boston batters had two — Jacoby Ellsbury, David Ortiz, Jonny Gomes and Jose Iglesias.

Iglesias went into the game batting .409, just one bad night away from finally falling below the .400 mark, but his amazing season continues, and he is back to .415.

And Lackey seems to finally be back to where he was before he left the West Coast for New England.